Good news. I was awarded the City of Boston’s Opportunity Fund so I can bring this class to the other side of the river. I’m not sure I will have a regular spot like I do at the Democracy Center but I hope to do a series of demos. Hopefully by request these can become a class Boston-side.

Here’s a bit of the language behind the request for funds from the City. I see this as an exercise in holding the city accountable to supporting cultural work >>

Having attended many and diverse community meetings in Boston-specifically, one thing I have been hearing from organizers is access to spaces and modalities of healing for their neighbors.

Dance is an incredible healing force and a modality that brings levity and joy that comes with the feeling of accomplishment when people work through something physical and get it. Over the past four years I have been developing a model whereby communities can reclaim meditative dance that is good on the body and adaptable to a variety of bodies.

I feel deeply that people are hungry to reconnect with this modality. Seeking always to incorporate many access points to a form that is dependent on bodies that bear pain through various toxic socialization practices, I hope through this process to ease suffering through transforming embodied trauma mindfully, joyfully, abundantly.

The practice of healing involves inclusion: I design responsive choreography and am mindful that people have variable movement capacities. I make modifications to the best of my ability with a goal to accommodate anyone interested in dance.

I would not want to charge participants. As a working artist, I am seeking a moderate stipend from the Opportunity Fund for 3 months of work that would help me with rehearsal spaces to develop and share the choreography, food for participants at each class (for health and wellness modeling especially in a space dedicated to physical wellness), and a stipend for my labor developing the choreography and community dance model during this time. This support would be essential in making this effort be sustainable.